A Maverick Manifesto for the 21st Century Photograher

Print Surface Resolution…A Proposal by Stephen Schaub

Ever wonder how much resolution (dpi) is possible on a print? Not printer resolution, but rather Paper or Print Surface Resolution. This audio blog lays out a proposal by Hybrid Artist Stephen Schaub on a new approach for determining just how good your prints can be on a specific paper.

2 Responses

The basic idea of testing for print surface resolution is a good one, but involves a daunting number of variables. What is needed is something like an ISO standard that would set common ground rules — usable by manufacturers and independent testers for purposes of comparison (like film speed standards) — *and* a digital-age Ansel Adams to popularize a set of simple procedures for actual photographers to discipline and regularize the use of their personal combinations of equipment and materials (as we do for film speed and development). At the moment we seem to have neither ISO-like industry standards nor Zone-System-like techniques for learning and using “the craft”.

There is software like Chromix Pro which allows you to look into an icc profile and map it’s specific qualities but this is just numbers and not prints. The USAF test target is good but lacks in some very important areas. The test target I have for download here on the Figital Revolution (it is under Target Pratice) was inspired by the DIMA targets that I see every year…most of which suck. I wanted to make a target that was visual so the average user without $$$ worth of software could eval their profiles and paper combo and figure out just how good their system is and better understand its limitations and strengths and in doing so touch on PSR. At Indian Hill Imageworks I run an exhaustive series of tests and use both mathmatical and visual tests to determine icc quality and PSR (I use a 30x microscope for final dot inspection)….but this is out of the range of most users. My current target is something like an eye test…easy to take, easy to understand and eval and of course easy to cheat on.